Titus 2

But as for you, Titus, you must teach people what is appropriate behavior for people who believe the truth about God.

Tell the older men that they must control themselves at all times, that they must live in a way that other people respect, and that they must act sensibly. Tell them that they must also firmly believe the true things about God, love others truly, and do all these things even when it is difficult.

Tell the older women, like the men, to live so that everyone knows that they respect God very much. Tell them that they must not say mean or false things about other people and that they must not be addicted to drinking a lot of wine. Instead, they should teach others what is good.

In this way, they will be able to advise the younger women to love their own husbands and children.

The older women should also teach the younger women to control what they say and do, to not act in a bad way toward any man, to work well at home, and to do what their husbands tell them to do. They should do all these things so that no one will insult God's message to us.

As for the younger men, urge them likewise to control themselves well.

You yourself must continually do what is good so that others will see what they should also be doing. When you teach the believers, make sure that everything you say is true and say it in a way that they will respect.

Teach people what is right with messages that no one can criticize, so that if anybody wants to stop you, other people will shame them because they will have nothing bad that they can justly say about any of us.

As for those believers who are slaves, teach them that they should always submit to their masters. Tell them to live in a way that pleases their masters in every way, and to not speak against them.

They must not steal even little things from their masters; instead, they should be faithful to them, and they should do everything in a way that leads people to admire all that we teach about God, who saves us.

The believers should behave in these good ways because God is offering to save everyone as a gift that no one deserves.

When God saves us as a free gift, he also trains us to stop doing what is wrong and what people of the world want to do. He teaches us to be sensible, do what is right, and obey God while we live during this present time.

At the same time, God teaches us to wait for what he will certainly do in the future, which is something that will make us very happy: Our great God and Savior Jesus Christ will return to us in great splendor.

He gave himself to die for us as the payment that frees us from our lawless nature and to make us clean to be a people who are his special possession, a people who eagerly desire to do what is good.

Titus, speak about these things. Urge our brothers and sisters to live as I have described and correct them when they do not, using your right to command them if necessary. Make sure that everyone pays attention to what you say.